


in the depths of our dreams/winter comforts me

by feminist14er



Category: The 100
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-15
Updated: 2016-12-15
Packaged: 2018-09-08 19:54:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8858659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feminist14er/pseuds/feminist14er
Summary: A story in six parts; Clarke and Bellamy at Christmas through the years.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [horcruxa](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=horcruxa).



> Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas to horcruxa, who loves enemies to friends to lovers, and is a fan of modern AUs. Hope this fits the bill! Thanks to the mods at bellarkesecretsanta for organizing this again this year - it's always so fun, and I really appreciate all the hard work you put into it.
> 
> Title is a bastardization of lyrics from Susie Suh's "Winter".

_i._

The first time Clarke and Bellamy spend Christmas together, it’s a minor miracle that the house is in one piece at the end.

Clarke is eighteen and living with Octavia. She hasn’t spoken to her mother since she left for college, her father is dead, and she just found out that she’s been helping Finn cheat on another (frankly awesome, ridiculously hot) woman. She’s already not at her best, so when Octavia offers for her to come home for Christmas, saying that Bellamy is the best at being a mother hen, Clarke thinks it sounds pretty good.

And it really would have been fine, except that she’s the daughter of _Senator Griffin_ , so it’s not exactly like she’s inconspicuous, and her mother isn’t well liked, so neither is she, by proxy.

( _Princess_ gets thrown around a lot the first couple of days, and it takes all her will not to burst into tears or go into a rage. Octavia must take him aside and explain the problem with that particular nickname, because he stops using it, even if he continues to be a total dick in all other respects).

She thinks they could get into an argument about whether the sky is blue if they really felt like it, but once he stops calling her princess, she decides she kind of enjoys fighting with him. It’s not just that it’s vaguely entertaining, it’s that, in a sick way, she gets to take out all her anger and frustration from the last semester out on an unaffected party, and he gives as good as he gets, so she doesn’t even really have to feel that badly about arguing with and yelling at someone who hasn’t done anything besides let her into their home during the holidays.

Still, on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, it’s like they mutually decide that it’s inappropriate to continue fighting over nothing (and everything), and if it’s weird and stilted, and Octavia keeps looking askance at both of them, at least there’s no yelling to be had. Instead, they all exchange small gifts, and when Bellamy glances at her in surprise and appreciation at her gift of _Dune_ , she feels a small flush of pride. (She knew he was a nerd from Octavia, but he’s more the history and classics kind of nerd; it’s what he teaches, she knows, but she thinks that _Dune_ has enough elements to appeal to him, without being something he normally would have picked out, and okay, it’s dumb that she feels as satisfied as she does, probably, but she _likes_ giving gifts, she likes picking things out, and there’s a substantial, glowing feeling of success when something lands just right, and – yeah. This landed right, she can tell).

The rest of her time at the Blake house is spent in much the same way; after Christmas, she and Bellamy continue to bicker, and more often than not, it turns into a full-scale fight, including shouting. If they were any less mature, she thinks slammed doors would be in the cards, but it’s not her house, so she doesn’t think that’s appropriate. She spends more time with Octavia, but she burrows into the blanket Bellamy got her, and yeah, it’s a generic fleece blanket, but it’s _soft_ , and it’s reassuring and simple, and – it’s nice, is all.

When she goes back to the dorm (before Octavia does – she doesn’t want to intrude on valuable sibling time), Bellamy rolls his eyes at her thanks and tells her to get lost. Her response is stiff and formal, the type of thing she knows he hates because it reeks of her privilege and upbringing, but – she also doesn’t really know how to say thank you in a way that makes sense (she wants to thank him for being an asshole, honestly, because no one is willing to _do that_ around her, and it makes a difference).

 _ii_.

She ends up at Bellamy’s again the next year.

She’s seen more of him in the past year; when Octavia got hurt in an accident, when Atom died – they were there together. Clarke was the one who bullied the nurses into letting Bellamy see Octavia before she was supposed to have visitors, and she sat with Bellamy while he waited through her surgery. She thinks, if it had been a movie, that this is the time that she would have held his hand and they would have bonded, but instead, he’s pacing frantically half the time, and she’s so strung out on caffeine she can barely remember her name, trying to keep everything together until she can get back to their room and collapse and cry in relief that Octavia is okay, cry that Atom isn’t. (She didn’t really like him, not much, but – Octavia did. And he was kind to Octavia, and regardless of her opinion of him, he’s _dead_ , and she just – can’t).

So, she ends up at Bellamy’s again for Christmas. She talks to her mom, now, at least every once in a while, but she still doesn’t want to go home, doesn’t want to go to the house in D.C., the house that’s sterile, that has Christmas decorations, but no personality, no joy to help the holidays feel real.

Instead, she drives herself and Octavia to Bellamy’s house, where there are garlands and shitty homemade ornaments, and the carpet needs to be replaced, but it smells like good food, the kind that Bellamy makes from scratch with spices that burn her tongue, and the possibility of arguing with someone who’s not a friend, but isn’t an enemy, either.

She goes with Octavia because she’s worried about her, too, and she feels like Bellamy’s going to fret about her in all the wrong ways, and Clarke can’t really _help_ with that, but she can buffer.

And by buffer, she means argue. But there’s less yelling this year, more eye-rolling and sarcasm and it’s fun this year the same way it was last year, but without the sickening feeling that she’s taking her shit out on a third party. Now she just feels like this is their dynamic, and it’s okay.

She makes cookies this year, lets Bellamy help and puts Octavia to work decorating. Bellamy makes other desserts, and they eat crap on Christmas Eve and a fancy dinner on Christmas Day, but in between, they open gifts and watch _Die Hard_ , and Bellamy got her some beautiful prints by a local artist, and she’s struck by how thoughtful it is. When she tries to thank him, he brushes her off gruffly, but later that night, while they’re washing dishes, she hip-checks him, and says, “Seriously, Bellamy. Thank you. For the prints, but for letting me be here, too.”

He looks down at her, and for the first time, his smile seems genuine. “It’s getting to be tradition, right?” he asks, gently teasing. “You’re welcome any time, Clarke. Even if you’re entirely wrong about the way to make legislative change.”

She groans and flicks the towel at him, and yeah – this is fun. They’re not friends, but they’re not enemies, and doing this once a year feels good.

 _iii_.

The following year, she’s getting ready to go abroad, and Bellamy is super fucking grumpy. She’s not sure if he’s mad that she has the opportunity to go abroad, or if he’s freaking out because Octavia is going to Iceland for six months, but he’s nasty from the get-go, and not in a way she’s seen before.

Fighting with him isn’t fun any more. It feels personal now, and she thought that first year was rough and it always felt personal, but really, it wasn’t. It was about her privilege, sure, but that’s not an exceptionally personal thing. Now, it feels like he’s making digging comments about her every choice, from watching _A White Christmas_ to the fuzzy socks she’s wearing. She thinks maybe she’s being too sensitive, and then immediately shakes that off. She’s allowed to feel like he’s being an asshole, because _he is_.

It’s almost enough to chase her back to the apartment she now shares with Raven and Octavia, but it seems like breaking tradition to do that, and she doesn’t want to put Octavia in the middle, so she grits her teeth and sticks it out.

Finally, on Christmas Eve, she reaches a breaking point. She doesn’t tear him to pieces publicly, although she does want to take him down about ten notches. Still, she waits until later, until Octavia is brushing her teeth, to confront him.

“What the hell, Bellamy?” she starts. “If you don’t want me to be here for Christmas, why did you tell Octavia it was okay?”

He stares at her for a minute. “What are you talking about?”

Clarke glares. “I’m talking about the fact that you’ve been an absolute asshole since I got here, and not in the way you usually are. I’m used to you being sarcastic and picking dumb fights about politics. This is you picking at _me_ , specifically, and I want to know why.”

He runs his fingers through his hair, shifts side to side. When he meets her gaze, it’s sheepish. “I – I’m just – “ he sighs. “I’m freaking out about Octavia leaving, I guess, but I also just – I want things to stay the same, and they’re not.”

“Okay, but – why are you pissed at me, specifically?” Clarke asks.

Bellamy grimaces. “I’m not, honestly. You’re an easy target, but also – I like the way things are. Or were, you know? I liked that we were making a tradition, that it seemed like we were getting to be friends, and now – you’re leaving. You and Octavia are adults now, and there’s no need for you to have traditions with your roommate’s older brother. You’re going to go out and see the world and leave, and coming back is going to feel like a letdown, and coming back here – you’re not going to want that. So what’s the point in getting attached?” he asks. Clarke hears the note of desperation in his voice and softens.

“You know that’s ridiculous, right?” she says. “You know I could have been going back home for the past three years for the holidays, to what’s ‘traditional.’” She makes the air quotes in disgust. “I like it here. I like the way you decorate, and the food you make, and the fact that we watch _Die Hard_ , and that you and I yell about stupid shit, and Octavia just rolls her eyes. Us going out, _me_ going out into the world, as you put it, isn’t going to change that.” She bites her lip. “This – this feels like home,” she says, hushed and awkward. “I like _this_ ,” she says, gesturing around, “and I don’t see that changing just because I go to Mexico City to study art history.”

Bellamy gives her a crooked smile. “Yeah, you say that. I guess it’s hard to believe when I’ve never really left, never had the opportunity to try doing things differently.”

Clarke shrugs. “That’s fair. But – being an asshole to me, pushing me away? _That’s_ what would make me not want to keep this up. Not going out and trying new things and going new places. That’s what makes me want to come back to things like this.” She grins up at him, and she appreciates the way his glasses are slipping down his nose, just a little. The scar above his lip is particularly obvious when she’s this close to him, and she feels, just for a second, as she’s watching him, the first thoughts of _oh_ , and _huh_. She pushes them aside for now, but when she reaches out to Bellamy it feels weird for the first time. Still, she squeezes his hand before she leaves the kitchen, and she’s glad she confronted him about it.

When she opens her present from him the next day, it’s to see a series of travel-size paintbrushes, with a note that says _paint it for me, so I can see what it’s like_ , and when she looks up at him, he’s blushing faintly, and she feels a rush of the same feeling she recognized in the kitchen yesterday. _This is new_ , she thinks, but – it’s not bad. It could be very good. And time (and space) will tell what it means.

 _iv_.

They exchanged emails almost constantly while Clarke was in Mexico, which is why it’s a surprise to Bellamy that he doesn’t know when she gets back into the country, and doesn’t hear from her once the semester starts. It’s not until she shows up, eyes red-rimmed, on his doorstep, that he realizes that she’s back and that her radio silence means something has been terribly, terribly wrong.

She sleeps on his couch for several days, and he listens as she talks her way through her relationship with Lexa, right up to the bitter end when she abruptly moved across the country to start a curator position and left Clarke in the state she’s in now.

And it’s not just the breakup; Clarke’s in her senior year of college, and Bellamy remembers a little bit why that was stressful, although it was largely stressful for him because he was trying to help Octavia apply for college and figure out how he was going to get her through school, but still – he remembers the near constant writing, the anxiety over finding a job, and he knows that Clarke is getting pressure from her mom to do something practical, while Clarke wants to take time for her art.

So – she stays with him, and he feeds her and lets her stay, and when she goes back to her apartment, she leaves with a hug, and for the first time in a long time, Bellamy lets himself think through the possibility of having a partner, a girlfriend, and he gently thunks his head against the door as he closes it behind her and tells himself to get a grip. 

The thing is, she comes to him in October, and he doesn’t see her again until – December. Until Christmas. She texts him occasionally, and it’s always some funny story, so it’s not like it’s total radio silence, but – he’s surprised that she doesn’t come around.

When she shows up for Christmas, she’s got Octavia and a _giant_ man in tow. Bellamy considers himself to be relatively intimidating, but Lincoln, as Clarke introduces him, is heavily tattooed and incredibly tall. Bellamy dislikes him on sight, out of sheer spite.

(He tells himself it has nothing to do with the way Clarke laughs around him. When Clarke tells Bellamy that Lincoln is one of her best friends from her art classes, he tells himself that his dislike has nothing to do with the happiness in Clarke’s voice, but – mostly he just feels like an idiot. He feels like an even bigger idiot when he sees the way Lincoln looks at Octavia).

They do all of the normal Christmas things they usually do, but where Clarke stayed over for the first couple of years, she goes home to her apartment now, basking in her gift-giving success, and leaving Bellamy with a lingering hug.

Octavia takes one look at him and sighs. “You’ve got it bad, Bell.”

He looks at her askance and thinks, _hello pot, my name is kettle_.

 _v_.

Clarke stays in town after graduation. She _likes_ the place where she’s gone to college, and working at the local coffeeshop and teaching art classes to kids? It’s fun. She likes it. It’s not at all what her mother would have envisioned for her, and she’s not entirely sure that her father wouldn’t be politely bemused about the entire thing (albeit supportive), but – she’s supporting herself, and she’s actually _happy_ doing it, which is really more than she ever expected.

Being able to see Octavia and Bellamy on a regular basis just happens to be a substantial benefit.

She and Octavia and Raven are still living together, although she suspects that, a year into dating Lincoln, they’re about to lose Octavia as a roommate. She’s happy for her, of course, but it’s one more change that has her heart twisting a little in her chest.

The other change is that Bellamy is thinking of getting a Master’s, and as proud as she is of him, of how hard he’s worked to get himself and Octavia both through college, she’s not ready for him to leave, move across the country.

All of this comes to a head at Christmas, because of course it does. This time she’s the one who’s a little snappish, and her heart cracks a little more every time she sees Bellamy look at her in confusion, and he never snaps back which somehow makes her feel even worse. Even her excitement at his Christmas present is dampened this year, and when she takes her beer outside for a minute, just to get away, she finally allows herself to think what she’s been ignoring for – well, at least two years.

 _She’s in love with Bellamy_. And it seems absurd, so painfully ridiculous, to be in love with someone that she’s never been on a single date with, to be in love with someone that she knows so well, but _not like that_. She shakes her head a little, and when she feels a weight on the porch behind her, she braces for the warmth of Bellamy settling in next to her.

He doesn’t say anything at first, and it gives Clarke a minute to collect her thoughts, to think back to the conversation she had with him before she left for Mexico. She’s doing the same thing, and she cringes a little thinking about it.

Finally, Clarke breaks the silence. She’s fiddling with the label on her bottle as she says, “I’m sorry, for – “ she looks over at him, and he’s gazing steadily back at her. She feels like her stomach is in her throat, and she – she doesn’t even know how to feel. She’s sad, and she’s miserable, and she _loves him_ , and it’s strangling her from the inside out. “I’m sorry for picking at you. I know I shouldn’t, and it’s just like déjà vu, but – I don’t want you to leave. I’m not ready for that.” Her voice cracks a little bit, and she swallows past the lump in her throat.

Bellamy sighs and turns his gaze away. “It’s not that nothing’s going to change, Clarke. You know I can’t promise that. But you’re always welcome at Christmas time, whether I’m here or halfway across the country.” He turns back to her. “You’re welcome any time,” he says, and his voice is soft. He lifts his hand slowly, pets her hair back, and she rubs her face into his hand without thinking about it.

She sighs a little, breathing in the smell of him next to him, and he curls his fingers around the back of her neck, scratching gently at the base of her hair, and when she looks back up at him, he’s looking at her, a soft smile on his lips, and that’s all it takes for her to move toward him, slowly, hesitatingly, but when her lips meet his, he’s immediately right there with her, pressing back against her, and they end up making out languorously for a while.

It’s like a dream, she thinks, especially when it starts snowing, snowflakes catching in his eyelashes, in her hair, and she pulls away with a laugh before coming back and burying her nose in his neck.

He runs his hand up and down her back. “Okay?” he asks.

She nods against him. “So much better than okay,” she says, pulling away again to look him in the eye. 

 _vi_.

The next Christmas, he’s picking her up the airport, driving quickly through the rain to get her and her stuff, and it’s surreal to him that she’s going to be _here_ , not just for the break she gets from teaching, but that she’s going to be here for the near future, for however long he’s in school.

Christmas has meant Clarke for so long that he was initially worried when he moved that she wouldn’t be able to come out and see him. (Before they got together, he was worried that she wouldn’t even want to, that it wouldn’t be important enough). Now, though, as he sees the shine of her hair under her hat, sees her grin and wave when she sees his car – he knows, she’ll be with him, and he’ll be with her, at Christmas, at Halloween, during boring days and excited moments – they’re together, they’re with each other for good.

When he gets out of the car and hugs her close, her nose against his neck again, he knows: it’s real, and it’s good.


End file.
